By Save the Mirror Campaign Group
TRINITY Mirror’s Chief Executive Sly Bailey is planning to axe a further 200 editorial staff from The Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People. This follows the loss of 1,700 jobs from the group last year – a cull of one in five jobs.
The current round of redundancies has been branded ‘Neanderthal’ by Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists.
Dear says: ‘It’s disgraceful that against a background of making more than £70 million in profit last year and of paying millions in remuneration to a handful of Trinity Mirror execs, the company should now throw more than a quarter of its talented, hardworking workforce onto the scrap heap.’
The Mirror remains unique as the only popular national paper to support the Labour Party in the last election.
If the planned cuts go ahead there will be no features department, only a handful of news reporters, and just a few sub-editors.
The paper will be reduced to functioning on a skeleton staff reliant on news agency wire copy.
Already beleaguered, any remaining journalists will no longer have the time or resources to effectively challenge the right wing dominated media and current Coalition Government.
Trinity Mirror journalists are currently voting on strike action and a ‘Save The Mirror’ Facebook Group has been set up in the hope that if we can get enough members we will be able to pressure the Trinity Mirror Executive Management into halting these cuts.
The site also contains information and updates on the campaign.
WHY THE MIRROR IS IMPORTANT:
For over 100 years, the Daily Mirror has played an important role in the UK as a popular and influential voice of the Left.
It is the paper that helped build support for the NHS after the War.
It was the only popular newspaper to speak out from the start against the invasion of Iraq.
It remains unique as the only national paper to support the Labour Party in the last election.
Whether or not you’re pro Labour, it remains an inescapable fact that in a healthy democracy it is crucial that the national press represents the views of all the major political parties.
Britain needs a national newspaper that will challenge the Conservative-dominated media and current Coalition Government.
DEVASTATING IMPACT OF STAFF CUTS:
Now The Mirror needs your help to protect it from the type of devastating staff cuts instigated at the Daily Express by owner Richard Desmond, which have left the paper reliant on stories from news wires.
It is no surprise that with so little investment in journalism that The Express circulation figures have plummeted to barely half of the Mirror’s 1.2m.
We know that print newspapers need to adapt to the new digital age but however things evolve there is still a need for good quality journalists to come up with ideas, investigate stories and write copy.
The current Trinity Mirror job cuts will leave a tiny skeleton staff who will no longer have the time or resources to challenge Government, to oppose illegal wars, to investigate wrong-doing or stand up for the rights of working people.
There will now be no features department, only a handful of news reporters, and just a few sub-editors.
The Trinity Mirror’s Board of Directors, with Chief Executive Sly Bailey wielding the knife, have already cut the editorial staff to the bone – there is nothing left to trim.
And as if stripping the paper of its journalistic assets were not bad enough, Sly is squeezing the Mirror’s readers dry.
Exploiting the lack of choice, and abusing reader loyalty, she has bumped up the price of the paper to 45p – more than double the price of the Sun.
If Richard Desmond’s threat to cut the price of the Daily Star in July materialises, the Daily Mirror will cost four times the price of the Star.
Meanwhile a Trinity’s spokesman says the management team’s key focus remains realising value for shareholders.
SLY BY NAME . . .
And the financial backdrop to all this – the Trinity Mirror national newspaper division turned a profit of £83.6m in 2009, with Sly pocketing a 66% bonus rise of nearly £700,000 on top of her £736,000 basic salary and pension contributions of £248,000.
What’s more, the new wave of staff cuts being spearheaded by Sly are taking place despite her assurances to journalists as recently as March that the company had ‘no redundancies planned’.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Join this Facebook group in calling for a halt to this culling of the Trinity Mirror’s remaining editorial staff.
Spread the word about what is happening at The Mirror including inviting others to join this group.
Call or email the Trinity Mirror’s Board Chairman Sir Ian Gibson to voice your concern.
You can reach him by emailing the Corporate Communications representative or calling +44 (0)20 7510 6613.
For details of other Trinity Mirror Board of Directors go to
http://www.trinitymirror.com/our-company/board-of-directors/